


there's no prescription for me

by liionne



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe
Genre: Alternate Universe - Hospital, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Burns, M/M, Minor Injuries, Nurse!Steve and Engineer!Bucky, Post-Serum Steve Rogers, also bear that in mind, but be warned, i know nothing about hospitals or how they work so, nothing too graphic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-07-08
Updated: 2018-07-08
Packaged: 2019-06-07 12:18:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,370
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15219011
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liionne/pseuds/liionne
Summary: "You seem mostly fine," Steve begins, but Bucky cuts him off."Mostly fine? You're a difficult guy to please." He grins, waggling his eyebrows at Steve, who's - yeah. He's blushing. Definitely blushing."From a health perspective, you're mostly fine." Steve says, after having ducked his head and tried to hide his grin. "But I'm going to have Dr. Carter come over and check you out anyway, give you the all clear. Sit tight, she won't be long."Or: accident-prone Bucky keeps coming into Steve's ER, so of course Steve is onna triage him, right?





	there's no prescription for me

**Author's Note:**

> So disclaimer: I know nothing about hospitals! Not a damn thing! Sorry to everyone who works in the medical profession and knows this is definitely not how an ER is run - artistic licence?
> 
> Also this was beta'd and posted very hastily, so apologies for any mistakes! Feel free to point them out so I can get them sorted.
> 
> Title is from Night Nurse by Gregory Isaacs, which is actually a bop.

Steve likes being a nurse. When he was a kid, he hated hospitals - he was in and out of them all the time, for breathing problems or heart problems or pneumonia or whatever, and he'd swore he'd never come back... and then one day he'd seen the other kids, who were just as sick as him, some even _sicker_ , and he'd known. He was going to do his best, maybe not by those specific kids, but by as many people as he could. 

He managed to get a full ride to college, and ended up an ER nurse - he'd considered pediatrics, because that was the dream he'd had in his head, ever since he was little, but then they'd started their emergency training and... well, the rest was history, as the saying goes.

He's made for the ER, see. He's big, and he's strong, and he's calm in the face of pressure, whether that be frantic families or frazzled doctors or a patient bleeding out on the floor. He can think fast, he can talk faster. He's good at taking orders and even better at giving them. The ER might be grizzly, but it fits him like a glove.

Hospital policy is that a nurse runs a triage, and then they get a doctor to them, or send them to a department if need be. So when Angie, the new student nurse, tells him that there's a guy on bed 8, can he go have a look, Steve is more than happy to oblige.

Until he gets to bed 8 and sees the guy sitting there, potentially the hottest guy he's ever _seen_ , looking kind of busted up and arguing with a woman in a power suit.

"I'm fine, Pepper, honest." He laments, to which "Pepper" responds, "Your medical is covered, James, and a _car_ fell on you, so--"

"Hi," Steve interrupts. "I'm Nurse Rogers, I've come to triage you until a doctor can get to you - a car fell on you?"

" _No_ ," James says, but Pepper glares at him, and so he sighs. "Kind of. I was underneath it when it fell off the jack, but I got out mostly out of the way, and it didn't even fall that far!"

Steve is stunned into silence for a minute, and then he shakes it off. "Uh - yeah. Still gonna need to check you over, Mr. Barnes--"

"Bucky." He corrects. Steve briefly wonders if he sneezed, because that’s a weird ass nickname, but instead of asking he just gives a small smile. 

"Alright, Bucky," He says. "I'm just going to make a few checks, okay?"

He does everything that he's trained to do. Checks his pupils, his breathing, his heart rate. Asks him if there's any pain, checks out the cuts and bruises he's sporting. Honestly, for someone who had a car dropped on them, he looks pretty good.

_Really good_. Steve's not thinking about that, though.

"You seem mostly fine," Steve begins, but Bucky cuts him off.

"Mostly fine? You're a difficult guy to please." He grins, waggling his eyebrows at Steve, who's - yeah. He's blushing. Definitely blushing. 

It's not that he's not used to getting flirted with, okay? He's six foot two and all muscle (despite working out, like, never - don't ask him what his secret is because his answer is 'god making up for my shitty pre-pubescent body') and Sam says he's got a smile that could charm just about anyone. He gets a lot of people flirting with him; the drunks who come in after a night on the town, the mothers who are just so grateful that their child's leg isn't broken, families and friends of npatients, wondering when he gets off and can they buy him a drink?

It's just that - well. He's never had someone as hot as Bucky flirting with him before.

"From a health perspective, you're mostly fine." Steve says, after having ducked his head and tried to hide his grin. "But I'm going to have Dr. Carter come over and check you out anyway, give you the all clear. Sit tight, she won't be long."

He pats Bucky's knee and moves back to the Nurse's station, marking it down on the system that he's been seen to and moving on to the next patient.

"He likes you." Angie grins, nudging Steve with her shoulder.

He looks up, feigning innocence. "Huh?"

"Bed 8. James Buchanan Barnes, 26." She reads. "Woah - he had a _car_ drop on him?"

"A little bit." Steve nods, going back to his paperwork.

"Well, whatever," She says. "He keeps looking over here and grinning. He _likes_ you."

"He doesn't like me," Steve says with a dismissive shake of his head. "He's probably just concussed."

"Because someone would have to be concussed to like you?" Angie shoots back, her eyebrows arching. "C'mon, Steve. I saw you blushing, you like him too. Get his number."

"He's a patient!" Steve says, louder than he meant to. His eyes flick over to Bucky, catching his gaze for a moment, and Steve blushes again. "It's not right."

"So get his number in half an hour when Peg's cleared him for discarge." Angie says, and grins again. "You'll regret it if you don't." She adds in a sing-song voice, which earns a smile from Steve.

"Yeah, well--" The phone rings, interrupting him, and Steve grabs at it. He scribbles down notes and then hangs up. "Maybe later, we've got three ambulances inbound."

By the time the four unfortunate ladies in the back of the ambulances have been taken to their respective departments, Steve's shift has been over for two hours, and Bucky is long gone.

~*~

Three days later and he's once again the most senior nurse in the ER, but thankfully they're having something of a slow day; they've so far seen a few walk-ins, and only a few ambulances with fairly minor-care patients. It could be worse, but Steve has another seven hours, yet. More than enough time for the world to end and come flooding into his Emergency Room.

He goes, briefly, to grab some supplies from the locked cupboard in the corner of the room, and when he returns Sam is looking at him, eyebrows arched. "There's a guy in bed 8 asking for you."

"Huh?" Is Steve's immediate response, but then it hits him. "Uh-- dark hair? Look kind of beaten up?"

"And totally gorgeous, yeah," Sam says, reading Steve's mind - how does he _do_ that? "Do I wanna know?"

"Nothing to know." Steve answers. "I'll go see to him."

When Steve gets to bed 8 (and that's a thing - is someone messing with him?) he finds Bucky sitting there, his bruises already beginning to turn yellow, cradling his left arm. "We don't have a loyalty card, y'know." Steve says, grabbing his chart from the end of the bed. "Tenth visit isn't free."

"Anyone else would've made a joke about comin' here to see you, but sure," Bucky grins, and then winces when he knocks his arm.

"What is it this time?" Steve asks, frowning a little. He cares for all of his patients, of course; one of the reasons he became a nurse was because he couldn't stand to see people in pain, but with Bucky it's... different. He _specifically_ doesn't want to see Bucky in pain. Watching his handsome face twist up in a wince makes Steve's stomach twist in turn.

"Uh, minor explosion." Bucky says, having the decency to look a little sheepish.

"An _explosion_?" Who even is this guy? "But I thought you were a mechanic?"

"Engineer." Bucky explains, cringing and hissing as Steve checks him over. "I work for Stark Labs - I look at his cars every so often, but technically I work up in R&D."

"And how's the working out for you?" Steve asks, eyebrows arching. 

Bucky snickers. "It's not normally so perilous." 

"Yeah, right." Steve says, his head shaking. "I'm going to go and get the on-call orthopedic surgeon to come and have a look at that, okay?"

Bucky seems a little startled by that, but then he nods, and deflates just a bit, before giving Steve a toothy grin. It's a lot to go through in approximately three seconds, but Steve sees it all. "Sure thing. Thanks for putting up with me."

"That's what I'm paid for." Steve teases, setting his chart back before he leaves. He can't help but glance back at Bucky, sitting on that bed, looking more than a little downcast, but when Bucky looks up Steve all but gives himself whiplash trying to look away, not wanting to get caught. 

Sam frowns at him when he returns, Dr. Banner moving over to Bucky's bed. "Seriously?"

"What?" Steve asks, sitting down behind the computer to update his chart.

"Guy likes you. You're not going to take advantage of that?"

"If you're so bothered, why don't you go get his number?" Steve retorts. Childish, yeah, but he never claimed to be an adult, okay?

Sam snorts. "Not my type."

"Oh, you mean he's not Dr. Romanov?" 

"Stop trying to change the subject and go get that guy's number."

Steve grimaces, looking up just as Bucky hops down from the bed, shakes the doctor's hand, and gives Steve a lingering look. It makes his stomach twist but in an entirely different way from before, a good way; it's a feeling he thinks he could get used to. And then Bucky winks, salutes, and turns around to leave. Steve blushes from the tips of his ears down to his neck, pink skin disappearing into the navy blue of his scrubs, and he has to duck his head, hiding behind his computer screen and silently cursing himself.

That doesn't hide him from Sam, though, who looks at him with arched eyebrows.

"What?" Steve demands.

Sam gives him a look that reads _you're_ _an idiot_ , but says, "Nothing, man. Absolutely nothing."

He files his paperwork and leaves, and Steve looks up at the door. Bucky is already gone.

~*~

“I passed out at my desk, just sleepy, but I hit my head kind of hard. Pepper wanted someone to have a look at it and she wouldn’t let me go home in case I was concussed, or something—“

“Smart lady.” Steve murmurs. 

“And she keeps insisting that my medical is fully covered, so. Here I am.”

“Here you are.” Steve agrees, his voice soft as he checks Bucky over for a concussion.

He’s been in a few times over the past few weeks, each time for something fairly minor - something that mostly just needs checked out by Steve before he goes about his day. Today, though, Steve’s going to have to do a little wound management, because Bucky must have hit that desk hard - his eyebrow is split open at the end, not deep enough for stitches but enough that it needs cleaned up and held together with a few butterfly bandages.

“So why were you falling asleep at your desk?” Steve asks, having determined that Bucky probably doesn’t have a concussion, and that he can move on to patching him up.

“Just busy at work.” Bucky shrugs. “You know how it gets - you get started on something, you lose track of time….”

“And suddenly you’ve been on shift for twenty hours and you’re seeing double.” Steve finishes for him, giving Bucky a wry grin. “Yeah, I get it.”

Today Bucky is sporting a fitting black shirt, open at the collar, and his hair is a little mussed - maybe because he’s been running his hands through it, or maybe because he smacked his head off a desk. Either way, it looks good. 

And being this close to him, of course, Steve can feel the warmth he radiates, can smell his cologne and the soft, musky scent of his skin beneath it. When he moves forward to clean the wound, antiseptic wipe in hand, he can feel Bucky’s breath ghosting over him.

But Bucky is his  _ patient _ , so Steve is going to act  _ professional _ .

Bucky hisses as the wipe hits the wound, tensing, and Steve tries not to frown too hard; he knew it was going to sting, but he wishes Bucky hadn’t had to hurt. 

“Pepper keeps telling me to just go home,” Bucky hisses again. “But when I’m caught up in it I don’t wanna go home, I just wanna finish—“

“Is Pepper your girlfriend?”

Oh, fuck.

Bucky looks at Steve for a moment with unreadable grey eyes, and then he shakes his head. “No, um— no. She’s my boss. She’s runs my department. Well. She runs it for Mr Stark. I think they’re dating? We’re not dating though. I’m single. So.”

Steve, flushing red from the tips of ears right down to his navy scrubs, nods jerkily. “Good. I mean - that’s. Okay.”

_ Good, _ he had said. God, Steve wants to die. Sure it’s good - he wants to ask Bucky out so fucking badly - but it’s so unprofessional. So,  _ so _ unprofessional.

He finishes sticking the butterfly bandages on, and takes a nasty step back. “So keep an eye out for any dizziness, or headaches, try to get some rest and stay hydrated. If you have any other problems just come back.” He says in a rush, grabbing Bucky’s chart and fleeing for the nurses station.

Once there, Sam arches an eyebrow at him. “What happened there?”

Steve just groans into the chart in his hand, doing his best to hide behind the filing cabinet until Bucky is gone.

~*~

Steve wasn't meant to be in today. In fact, today was going to be his Get Real Grown-Up Stuff Done day. Do his taxes, clean his apartment, go grocery shopping, that sort of thing. But then he got a call saying that Barton had gotten into (another) accident, could he come in, and he looked at his untidy apartment and empty fridge and decided sure. Why not? 

(Plus, it’s been a few weeks since he last saw Bucky, which should, in fact, be a good thing, but it actually makes Steve worry, and miss him, so he might as well go in and up his chances of an encounter.)

They're rushed off their feet all day; Steve barely has time to stop and do his paperwork., so god bless Angie, who sits behind the desk and takes control, sending everyone this way and that way in a more organsied form of chaos. 

When he gets sent to Bed 8, he's already been on his feet for about five hours, thought it feels like 50. When he's met with Bucky, his heart skips a beat, but his face is kind of too tired to feel it. He’s too tired to be embarrassed about what happened the last time they met, too, which must show, because Bucky reaches out to touch his bicep and looks at him all concerned.

"Hey, Steve - woah, hey, are you okay?"

Steve gives Bucky a wan smile, and a little nod. He knows he must look like shit, but Bucky looks better than ever, in a fitting white shirt and a thin black tie, sleeves rolled up to his elbows, and his hair is neatly slicked back. Steve bites his lip, because he has a feeling he's going to be thinking about this look a lot tonight but now is _not_ the time.

"Yeah, just busy." He answers. "Are you okay?" He asks, because changing the subject is probably a good idea, and anyway - Bucky's back in the ER. That's a big deal. 

“I kinda got burned,” Bucky says, holding up his left forearm so Steve can see the smattering of red marks over his skin.

“Jesus, Buck," Steve's heart leaps into his throat, eyes fixed on the burn. "You could’a led with that— how long?”

“About fifteen minutes ago, I—“

“This way.”

Steve grabs him by the wrist of his good arm in a manner that is likely completely unprofessional, and hauls him into a private room. He sets the tap at the sink in the corner running, and once he deems the water cool enough he pulls up a chair, and pushes Bucky onto it.

“This is gonna suck.” He warns him, before directing the burn under the stream of water.

Bucky hisses, swears, kicks the cabinet in front of him, and then closes his eyes. Steve watches the proceedings quietly, his hand curled around Bucky’s wrist to keep it where it is.

“Another explosion?” Steve asks. Bucky nods. “You gotta be more careful, Buck.”

“I’m very careful, thank you.” Bucky says between gritted teeth. “This was an unfortunate accident.”

“Very careful my ass,” Steve murmurs, looking at the bright red skin, making sure to keep it submerged, “You’re in here all the time.”

“Mostly just to see you.”

Steve looks up so fast his neck pops, which fucking hurts but he doesn’t care. How can he?. He’s looking at Bucky, meeting his gaze because Bucky is looking at him so intently that Steve wonders if he’s burning too, there's not enough brain cells left for him to care.

“You had a car fall on you.” Steve mumbles, for lack of anything else to say. He mostly lost the ability to talk when Bucky started looking at him like that. "And your desk--"

“Those were real,” Bucky nods. “But the twisted ankle, the sprained wrist, the potentially broken fingers? Those were all just to see you.”

“Those are some expensive dates.” Steve jokes weakly. Bucky isn’t laughing.

“My medical’s covered,” Bucky replies, finally looking away. “Last time, when you asked about Pepper I thought maybe I had a shot, but then you ran away like I was infectious so I guessed I didn’t.”

“Is that why it’s been a while?” Steve asks. 

Bucky nods sullenly. Steve hates seeing him like that, upset and in pain, utterly miserable. After a long moment of silence, he blurts,  “I can’t ask you out because it’s unprofessional. You’re my patient. I don’t want to compromise your medical care because we’re dating, and I don’t want to use this kind of relationship, this trust, as an advantage—“

“So if I go to a different hospital from now on, you’ll date me?” Bucky asks. Despite being in what Steve assumes is pretty god damn awful pain, Bucky seems to have perked up, looking at Steve with big, hopeful eyes, just like that. Like flicking a switch.

Steve huffs. “Well I’d prefer it if you just stayed out of trouble, but… yes.”

Bucky grins, a look Steve realised he had missed with all his heart, and then he surges forward, catching Steve’s lips in a kiss. It’s soft, sweet, not as hungry or desperate as Steve was imagining. It’s perfect. And even though he blushes, his heart skipping a beat, he has to pull away.

“Now’s not the time,” he scolds. “Gotta treat you first. Then we can go on a date.”

Bucky grins wider. “Sounds good to me.”

Steve wants to kiss him again, looking longingly at his lips for one moment before he straightens up. “I’m gonna go get the on-call doctor, you just keep your arm under that water, okay?”

Bucky looks up at him, still smiling, and he nods. “I’ll stay right here.” He agrees, grinning like an idiot.

Steve let’s slip a small smile, fond and exasperated all at once, before he leans down for one more kiss, this one even softer, lingering s little longer. “I’ll be right back.” Steve promises.

“You better!” Bucky calls after him. “Hey Steve, do you like italian or Chinese best?” 

Bucky’s voice echoes out into the corridor, and Angie gives him a bright smile. Evidently she's been eavesdropping, but Steve doesn't get the chance to call her out on it. “Dr Carter’s on her way. I told her to take her time, seeing as he’s got twenty minutes under the tap, so…”

She shoos him, sending him back to Bucky, who doesn’t seem to mind one bit.

“You know I can’t actually kiss it better, right?” Steve says, pulling back only briefly from Bucky’s lips. 

“No,” Bucky agrees. “But you can try.” He pulls Steve back into another kiss, good hand curled in his scrub top, and Steve decides that it’s worth a shot.

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading! It's been a little while since I last posted because I'm working on a slightly longer (in truth I have no idea what the word count is, its just taking a while) winter soldier!bucky moder escort!steve fic, so sorry to anyone who's been missing me, and keep your eyes peeled for that!
> 
> Questions, comments and prompts can be left below or at [my tumblr](http://liionne.tumblr.com) <3


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